The present invention pertains to a marching guide for teaching student members of marching bands, drill teams and the like, the correct marching pace length.
One of the first and most fundamental things that must be taught to beginning marching students is the correct pace length. If the correct pace length is not acquired by the student, difficulty will be encountered in keeping straight ranks and files in the marching formation, and as a result all marching formations and drill maneuvers will be adversely affected. Once basic skills have been acquired, additional training must be given periodically to maintain proficiency.
In the case of marching bands which commonly give marching performances on football fields, the yard markers, occurring at five yard intervals, are commonly used as a reference in performing marching routines and performances. Typically, a stride length of 221/2 inches is adopted, which provides eight paces per five yard marker. This also has the advantage of corresponding to eight counts of marching music. If the individual members of the marching band do not take the identical uniform 221/2 inch strides, the rows will be out of line when crossing the five yard markers, and this will be very apparent to persons watching the marching performance.
Various techniques have been used to teach students the basic pace length. One method is to have the student march down a football field with instructions that every eighth step should coincide with a five yard marker. One problem with this method is that the student does not receive the reinforcing feedback that the step length was correct or incorrect until eight steps have taken place, and the student may tend to shorten up or stretch out the last few steps in order to make the five yard marker come out right, but of course this leads to irregular and uneven pacing. Another problem is that there are no yard markers when marching laterally of the football field. Another technique is to lay out chalk lines or other visual markers at every step during practice sessions. While this provides positive feedback to the student as to the length of each step, it requires constant visual attention to the placing of the feet with the result that the student's accurate performance may become dependent upon the visual reference. Of course, this is not possible in most normal marching performance situations.
The prior art has proposed a number of methods for teaching foot placement in marching, walking, dancing and game playing. One prior art marching teaching technique involved taping lengths of rope across a floor, with each length transverse to the walking path, and spaced apart from the other lengths according to the desired pacing. A student may then march down the path. If the pacing is correct, each rope will be contacted by each foot at the same point, thereby providing an immediate tactile indication of the proper pace length. One difficulty with this type of guide is the necessity of measuring out the spacing and individually placing each of the ropes when the floor area is to be used for marching training.
One prior art stepping guide is the type shown in U.S. Pat. No. 1,815,443, issued to W. Mitchell. In that patent, a number of cut out footprints are provided which must be placed on the floor in predetermined locations according to the intended instructional program. This method also suffers the disadvantage that since the individual footprints are not connected to each other to automatically space them, it is necessary to measure out all locations for all footprints when the system is being set up.
Another type of guide known in the prior art is exemplified in U.S. Pat. No. 2,017,536 issued to Hase, et al. In that patent, a hopscotch game device is provided, comprising a number of pieces of rope which are connected at corners and bends by steel clamps in order to help give shape to the hopscotch apparatus. When stretched out, the hopscotch pattern is outlined by the lengths of rope, and the apparatus can be rolled or wadded up for storage. However, the Hase, et al. device is not suitable as a marching guide because the rope lengths are not secured in exact position and they would be easily dislodged a few inches either way by contact with the feet during normal marching, thereby impairing the accuracy of the device.